and he ran on a plan by saying that those savings would then be aplayed to deficit -- applied to deficit reduction, which we know is so critical. and we saw what people thought about that. he was reelected by a wide margin. the american people want us to come together, to work together in a bipartisan way to reduce the deficit, and they support the approach that starts by making sure that middle-class families are not once again asked to pay for the full burden of what needs to be done. they support an effort that says, extend tax cuts for middle-class families and ask those at the very top, who have gotten extra tax cuts, to forego those and chip in to be part of the larger deficit reduction solution. unfortunately, yesterday, speaker boehner ignored this when he offered a republican counterproposal to the president's proposal that would essentially raise taxes on middle-class families and cut medicare for our senior citizens. as senator reid said yesterday, it flunks the test of balance. to get the kind of revenue to reduce the deficit that is needed, and that we all agree on has to be